InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Falling ❯ Waking ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 2: Waking

 

Kagome groaned. Her head throbbed; she felt sick to her stomach. She couldn't feel her right leg at all.

 

“How are- oooph!” An anxious kitsune had launched himself at Kagome the moment she began to mumble.

 

“You're awake!” Her heart broke at the kit's swollen, red eyes. He had quite obviously been bawling for a while now. She tried shifting to bring her arms out from under the blankets to pull Shippou into a hug, but the blankets and kit together were too heavy for her to move.

 

“Gracious, child, are you awake?” Kaede's soft, concerned face moved into Kagome's range of vision. It was at about that time the miko realized she couldn't move her head.

 

“Why can't I-” Kagome was interrupted again.

 

“Lady Kagome!” Miroku's voice came from her right. She tried again to turn her head. “InuYasha!” Kagome tried to sit up again, to stop the monk from calling out to the hanyou.

 

`Still, if he's anywhere near, he probably knows I'm awake. He told me once that he could tell by my breathing. He's probably not anywhere nearby though. Kikyou…'

 

Tears threatened to overwhelm once again. She gulped them back and tried to bring her hands up to her face. She was thoroughly pinned down

 

“Don't move yet! There are blocks by your head. You hit it when you fell in the well and you were bleeding a lot and BakaYasha hasn't slept in days because we've been so worried about you!” Shippou hardly seemed to draw breath as he rattled off the events of the past few days. Kagome unconsciously tuned him out.

 

`The well…' A dull pain in her chest tightened, making it harder to breathe. Kagome closed her eyes. `Mama… Souta… Jii-chan… I'll never see you again.'

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

InuYasha swung at the offending trees as though they were Naraku, reborn and mocking. He'd learned long ago that aggression could be turned toward the positive. At this rate, the village would have enough wood to last the winter.

 

`Or build two new huts. Or one large one.'

 

He pushed the nagging voice deeper. It sounded suspiciously like Miroku. When had the lecher gotten into his head? It was happening more frequently now. Whenever he was apart from the others and not focused on other things, it seemed as though his pack had left Earth and taken up residence in his brain. It was all he could do to stop thinking. And InuYasha preferred “brute force” over thinking any day.

 

`Of course, perhaps if you thought more, you wouldn't find yourself taking out your anger at your lot in life at defenseless trees.' Miroku again. The hanyou debated taking out the monk.

 

Of course, he'd have to deal with an irate taijya. One who had proven her worth in battle time and time again, who was a formidable foe and was filling to fight to the death to protect the ones she loved.

 

`I could use a good fight right now.' He swung again at a tree, slicing it into decent-sized chunks of wood. Not too tiny, mind you. He was this village's protector, but he wasn't a charity. His villagers needed to stay strong, carting wood would help.

 

`My villagers? My pack? When did I start thinking about things and people in terms of mine?' InuYasha had known for years one solid fact: a hanyou owned nothing. Well, close to nothing. His mother, a hime, had left him what baubles and trinkets he could spirit away after her death. She had passed on his fire rat robe, which he worse proudly. And his father had left InuYasha his fang, Tetsusaiga.

 

`And a loving half-brother hell-bent on taking that fang and cleaving the half of my blood related to him out with it.' It was Sesshomaru who insisted on showing up and reminding him on an eerily schedule-like basis that a hanyou like him deserved nothing, was worth nothing…

 

`Kagome doesn't think so.' That was true. It had almost been her theme song, “I like you just the way you are.” She'd certainly seen him at his worst; he'd slaughtered a pack of bandits. He's dug overgrown claws into her in a spur of absolute power at Kaguya's castle. And what had the crazy wench done? `She kissed me. I was a second away from tearing out her spine, and she kissed me.'

 

It had taken weeks to be able to look her in the eyes again without blushing. Miroku's incessant teasing hadn't helped. The hanyou again debated the merits of killing the monk.

 

“InuYasha!” Speak of the devil now. InuYasha cracked his knuckles, glared over his shoulder. “Lady Kagome is awake!”

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

Miroku would have been inclined to laugh, if he had had a death wish. The hanyou had gone from pissed off to thrilled in the blink of an eye. A growing pile of chopped wood to InuYasha's left was a clear sign that his friend had been battling inner demons again.

 

`No doubt worried about the lovely Lady Kagome. It's clear he cares for her. I hadn't expected he would actually tell her, though. Nor did I think he would unbend his stubborn attitude enough to ask her to stay with him.' Miroku's face hardened at the thought of the well, and the look that had passed over Kagome's face when Shippou mentioned her fall into the well. `Not that she really has a choice now. Poor Lady Kagome will truly miss her family.'

 

A low growl brought his attentions back on the narrowed, golden eyes in front of him. Miroku forced a weak smile and briefly wondered if the hanyou had learned to read minds.

 

“Gomen, my friend. I was lost in my thoughts. You were saying?”

 

“I asked how she is… and why you're not there WATCHING her!” The sentence had started amidst growls, but it ended in a look that promised painful retribution should absolutely anything happen to the village while the monk was out searching for InuYasha.

 

“Lady Kikyou and Kaede are tending to her wounds, InuYasha, and I thought you would appreciate knowing she had come to. Recall the jewel did not heal the injuries from the battle with Naraku as it did ours.”

 

“Yeah, I wondered about that. All of our wounds were healed in a few hours. Why is it taking so long for her?”

 

“Ah, my good friend. Recall that only a truly selfless wish could have purified the Shikon no Tama. I would assume that as usual, Kagome was not concerned with any injuries she had sustained. In fact, I'm sure her thoughts were only on how to truly help her friends.”

 

That was Kagome, all right. The girl wasn't perfect; nobody is. But she did have a selfless soul. InuYasha had seen it first hand. How many times had she come back to him when he'd said hurtful things? InuYasha didn't think he could count that high.

 

Miroku swallowed. He had an inkling that most of Kagome's worst wounds had come not from the battle with Naraku, but from her headlong race to the well and subsequent fall. Either way, Kagome would have to take the long road in healing. “In any case, Lady Kikyou and Kaede should be just about finished taking care of Lady Kagome. Would you like to accompany me to see her?”

 

At this, InuYasha froze. `What if Kagome doesn't want to see me? Plus… with Kikyou there…' InuYasha had been doing his damnedest to avoid his former love. He knew she couldn't take all the blame for the way Kagome had taken off, but she hadn't helped matters. He thought that maybe if he stayed away from the former miko, his friends would be able to honestly say that InuYasha wasn't encouraging her. He felt bad, but he had made his decision.

 

Miroku seemed to know what InuYasha was thinking. “I'm sure she'd like to see you. In fact, she probably needs to see you. She's going to be here for the rest of her life. We should be sure to make sure it is a happy one.”

 

Ears flattened against his head, InuYasha looked as though he was contemplating taking off into the forest for the next several years. But Miroku had promised Kaede he'd fetch the hanyou, and Miroku was monk of his word. `For the most part,' he amended mentally.

 

“Come. Afterward, it might be a wise idea to go hunting. We've put off our victory feast long enough. Now that Lady Kagome is awake, we should be able to prepare.” Miroku started back off toward the village. InuYasha fell in step behind him slowly.

 

*~*~*~*~*

 

A metallic taste filled Kagome's mouth as she bit her tongue. `Don't scream, don't scream, don't scream' became a mantra increasingly hard to keep hold of. Shippou was trying to stay out of the way, but he had just knocked into Kagome's broken ankle, and the herbs that had limited feeling had all but been overcome by the white-hot pain shooting up her leg.

 

Shippou smelled the tears in his mother's eyes and hurried to move back. He hadn't meant to hurt her! Oh, InuYasha was going to bop him one for sure!

 

Kagome endured the rest of the ministrations in silence. She refused to make eye contact with Kikyou, and the former miko seemed content to work in silence. Kagome nodded when Kaede asked if her head hurt, shook her head when offered food.

 

“Kagome-chan!” Kagome lifted her head slowly to gaze at Sango. The older girl grinned to see her younger sister awake. “Would you like me to help you to a hot spring?”

 

Kikyou narrowed her eyes at the taijya, breaking her silence. “She probably shouldn't walk on a broken ankle. How do you propose she get there?”

 

Sango met Kikyou's narrowed eyes with a determined look. Behind her, Kirara mewed. “Kirara will take us. Kagome won't have to be on her feet… er, foot, for more than a moment. I can lift her off and on.”

 

“I do-” Kagome's voice was weak. She cleared her throat, “I do need a bath, and I'm sure-.”

 

Sango grinned. If Kagome had a weakness, it was her fondness for baths. Hot springs, rivers, lakes, waterfalls… the girl seemed as though she could live in the water. Though the miko had a smile plastered to her face, she couldn't stop the emotional and physical pain from turning into tears shining in her eyes. A bath would help wash away feelings of inadequacy and frustration… and get her away from Kikyou. Sango was fiercely protective of her adopted sibling, even more so now that the girl had returned Kohaku to her.

 

“Is it wise to take Kagome to a hot springs just after we gave her more medication?” Kaede's voice cut through Kagome's comments and Sango's thoughts.

 

“What do you mean?” Sango turned her gaze to Kaede. The taijya held the elderly miko in high regard. Sango was sure that at least this miko had only Kagome's best interests in mind.

 

“The herbs we gave her should put her to sleeping soon. It's a heavy concoction.”

 

Kagome, now allowed to sit up (a little) looked at the woman who she had come to see as almost a grandmother. “You're saying I might-”

 

“Kagome!” A red and silver blur rushed through the door. The girl cringed and turned her face away. She just couldn't, couldn't look at him right now.

 

`Why does it hurt my heart so much?' Tears pricked her eyes again as she trained her gaze on a burn on the floor.

 

“Kagome?” More tears. And a hanyou who apparently couldn't leave well enough alone… he knelt next to her and lifted her chin with a finger. She tried not to look into his face. She didn't want to see the pity she knew would be there. She didn't want to hear him call her stupid for running, or call her a klutz for falling.

 

“Kagome. Kagome, look at me.” The voice was gruff and low, but she could pick up pain buried in there. `I'm this way because of HIM. I should be mad at him. Why does it hurt me to hear him in pain, even now?'

 

Chocolate brown eyes met gold. She couldn't stop the tears from falling this time, and he winced as though each drop had the power to purify him. He wouldn't relinquish his hold on her chin, though. Using his thumb to wipe away the tears, he just stared at her.

 

`What does he want?' Kagome's mind swam, but she found she couldn't focus on much other than the intensity of his eyes. `Are the herbs kicking in that quickly?'

 

`What does she want?' InuYasha willed himself to read her mind. `She said she'd stay with me. She promised to be with me. She wanted to be with me. Is she rethinking that now?'

 

`Is he hypnotizing me? Why doesn't anybody say anything?' Kagome distantly thought of the others in the room, who hadn't said a thing since InuYasha entered. `Are they just watching us stare at each other? What do I say to him? I promised to stay with him… but…' “Mama…Souta…”

 

InuYasha's ears flatted further into his hair as the girl dissolved into hiccups and sobs. He could feel his companions' eyes burning into him as he gently hugged the girl, but for once, didn't speak up. Right now, Kagome mattered most.

 

`How can I make her okay with staying with me? Can I make her want to be with me?'

 

 

A/N:

I didn't actually expect that I would continue with this story, but the idea just won't get out of my head. I really wanted a chance to get an InuYasha introspective in here. I think he's a deeper thinker than he lets on - he's certainly not stupid. He wouldn't have lived as long as he had. Sure, he's not that great with people. Or emotions. Or complex ideas. But he's not stupid.

 

Disclaimer: I do not own InuYasha or any other characters from the anime/manga. They all belong to Rumiko Takahashi.